An Extensive Work in Progress

When I started this, I initially referred to it as a dictionary. However, it has far since progressed from a simple defining of words to an in-depth study of the language of the world known as Gor.

Dictionary
Etymology: Medieval Latin dictionarium, from Late Latin diction-, dictio word, from Latin, speaking
       "1 : a reference source in print or electronic form containing words usually alphabetically arranged along with information about their forms, pronunciations, functions, etymologies, meanings, and syntactical and idiomatic uses
       2 : a reference book listing alphabetically terms or names important to a particular subject or activity along with discussion of their meanings and applications
       3 : a reference book giving for words of one language equivalents in another
       4 : a computerized list (as of items of data or words) used for reference (as for information retrieval or word processing)." — Merriam-Webster Dictionary ©2004-2006

Encyclopedia
Etymology: Medieval Latin encyclopaedia course of general education, from Greek enkyklios + paideia education, child rearing, from paid-, pais child
       "A work that contains information on all branches of knowledge or treats comprehensively a particular branch of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically often by subject." — Merriam-Webster Dictionary ©2004-2006

Voila. Please enjoy this extensive encyclopedia that I have compiled — and am still compiling. It never fails to amaze me at how many times you can read a book and pick up something … new.

Please Note

For those terms which have a counterpart from Earth, be it modern times or ancient times, I've included photos, depictions and researched information from dictionaries and encyclopedias to further enhance this encyclopedia. I know there will be those that will make commentary on why I put information of "Earth" things, such as the heteira, photos of kantharos' and hydria, etc. Basically, most people have no clue what a kantharos, hydria, crater, or a kylix is, yet John Norman utilizes these very "Earth" things in his books. As he states in his books, much of the civilization and their culture on Gor was brought there from Earth long ago in the Voyages of Acquisition. Therefore, it could be assumed that such things would be very near to what they would be on Gor — especially since his descriptions match very closely with the descriptions of those objects that I found in my research. This information is provided in my pages as a visual aid only.

When referring to expressions or terms, especially to such peoples as the red savages or Innuit, for brevity purposes, the word "term" shall be used whereas a term may be an expression, or whereas an expression is a term.

This encyclopedia does not go into depth in certain instances, such as in the various animal life, plantlife, foods, drinks, religious practices, et al. Please refer to that section of this site for detailed information.

The Gorean Language

The Gorean language is a well-developed language and is considered to be a very fluid, beautiful tongue. Much of the Gorean language is derived from the various languages of Earth, such as Greek, Roman, Celtic and Syrian, et al, as is evidenced in the following paragraph.

"On the whole, I liked the people I met, and I was confident that they were largely of Earth stock, that their ancestors had been brought to the planet in Voyages of Acquisition. Apparently after having been brought to the planet, they had simply been released, much as animals might be released in a forest preserve, or fish stocked free in a river. The ancestors of some of them might have been Chaldeans or Celts or Syrians or Englishmen brought to this world over a period of centuries from different civilizations. But the children, of course, and their children eventually became simply Gorean. In the long ages on Gor almost all traces of Earth origin had vanished. Occasionally, however, an English word in Gorean, like 'axe' or 'ship,' would delight me. Certain other expressions seemed clearly to be of Greek or German origin. If I had been a skilled linguist, I undoubtedly would have discovered hundred of parallels and affinities, grammatical and otherwise, between Gorean and various of the Earth languages. Earth origin, incidentally, was not a part of the First Knowledge, though it was of the second." — Tarnsman of Gor, pages 44-45.

On Gor, there are many spoken dialects, of the language known as "Gorean," or simply, "The Language." It is a highly developed language, with complex expressions. Although there is only one language on Gor, there are several barbarian languages spoken in the more remote areas of Gor.

"… for the Goreans do have this in common, their mother tongue in all its hundred permutations, which they simply refer to as the Language, and all who fail to speak it, regardless of their pedigree or background, of their standards or level of civilization, are regarded as almost beyond the pale of humanity." — Outlaw of Gor, page 47.

"… but what intrigued me here, perhaps for no sufficient reason, was the complex nature of the expressions involved. This suggested to me that perhaps a well-developed language or mode of conceptual thought existed prior to the primitive hunting groups that must have flourished long ago on the planet. People had come, or had been brought to Gor possibly, with a fully developed language…" — Tarnsman of Gor, page 44.

"Here, however, a world away, I heard the same accent, or one similar, save that here it was not an accent. Here it was the natural sound, the rhythm and inflection, of what was apparently an independent, doubtless sophisticated, native tongue. I was frightened. The language, though it struck my ear as strange, was not unpleasant. It was rather strong, but in its way it seemed supple and beautiful." — Captive of Gor, page 49.

Once I noted, speaking to Inge, that Ute, regularly, made certain grammatical errors. "Yes," said Inge, matter-of-factly," she is of the leather workers." — Captive of Gor, page 71.

"I knew they spoke a dialect of Gorean, and I hoped I would be able to understand them." — Nomads of Gor, page 9.

Phonetic tongue clicks are used in some of the languages spoken in the interior of the Ushindi region. These tongue clicks are similar to that of the bushmen of Africa on Earth.

"I then heard the tiny noise made by Marcs, almost inaudible, a tiny clicking noise, not unlike one of the phonetic tongue clicks used in some of languages spoken east of Schendi, in the interior." — Vagabonds of Gor, page 372.

"Whereas there was a main common tongue on Gor, with apparently several related dialects or sublanguages, some of the Gorean languages bore in sound little resemblance to anything I had heard before, at least as languages; they resembled rather the cries of birds and the growls of animals; they were sounds I knew could not have been produced by a human throat." — Tarnsman of Gor, page 39.

"There are several barbarian languages spoken on Gor, usually in more remote areas. Also, some of the dialects of Gorean itself are almost unintelligible. On the other hand, Gorean, in its varieties, serves as the lingua franca of civilized Gor. There are few Goreans who cannot speak it, though with some it is almost a second language. Gorean tends to be rendered more uniform through the minglings and transactions of the great fairs. Too, at certain of these fairs, the caste of scribes, accepted as the arbiters of such matters, stipulate that certain pronunciations and grammatical, formations, and such are to be preferred over others. The Fairs, in their diverse ways, tend to standardize the language, which might otherwise disintegrate into regional variations which, over centuries, might become mutually unintelligible linguistic modalities, in effect and practice, unfortunately, separate languages. The Fairs, and, I think, the will of Priest-Kings, prevents this." — Beasts of Gor, page 154.

"There are, of course, many languages spoken on Gor, but that language I have called Gorean, in its various dialects, is the lingua franca of the planet. It is spoken most everywhere, except in remote areas. One of these remote areas, of course, is the equatorial interior. The dialects of the Ushindi region I will usually refer to as the inland dialects. To some extent, of course, this is a misnomer, as there are many languages which are spoken in the equatorial interior which would not be intelligible to a native speaker of the Ushindi area. It is useful, however, to have some convenient way of referring to the linguistic modalities of the Ushindi area." — Explorers of Gor, page 100.

"I have little doubt that most of the black equatorial stock on Gor, descendants of individuals brought to this world by Priest-Kings on Voyages of Acquisition, perhaps hundreds of years ago, derive from one of the Earth's major linguistic families, perhaps the Bantu group. Gorean itself shows innumerable evidences of being derived largely from languages of the Indo-European group." — Explorers of Gor, page 270.

"My Chamber Slave's accent had been pure High Caste Gorean though I could not place the city. Probably her caste had been that of the Builders or Physicians, for had her people been Scribes I would have expected a greater subtlety of inflections, the use of less common grammatical cases; and had her people been of the Warriors I would have expected a blunter speech, rather belligerently simple, expressed in great reliance on the indicative mood and, habitually, a rather arrogant refusal to venture beyond the most straightforward of sentence structures. On the other hand these generalizations are imperfect, for Gorean speech is no less complex than that of any of the great natural language communities of the Earth nor are its speakers any the less diverse. It is, incidentally, a beautiful language; it can be as subtle as Greek; as direct as Latin; as expressive as Russian; as rich as English; as forceful as German. To the Goreans it is always, simply, The Language, as though there were no others, and those who do not speak it are regarded immediately as barbarians. This sweet, fierce, liquid speech is the common bond that tends to hold together the Gorean world." — Priest-Kings of Gor, page 52.

"Ko-lar," she said, indicating her collar. "It is the same word in English," I cried. She did not understand my outburst. Gorean, as I would learn, is rich in words borrowed from Earth languages; how rich it is I am not a skilled enough philologist to conjecture. "Collar!" I said. Eta frowned. "Ko-lar," she repeated, again indicating the neck band of steel fashioned on her throat. "Ko-lar," I said, carefully following her pronunciation. Eta accepted this. It may well be that almost all Gorean expressions may be traced to one or another Earth language. Yet, the language is fluid, rich and expressive. Borrowed expressions, as in linguistic borrowing generally, take on the coloration of the borrowing language; in time the borrowings become naturalized, so to speak, being fully incorporated into the borrowing language; at this point they are, for all practical purposes, words within the borrowing language. How many, in English, for example, think of expressions such as "automobile," "corral," and "lariat" as being foreign words? — Slave Girl of Gor, pages 80-81.

Due to the many dialects on Gor, as well as, a variety of languages that could be encountered due to the Voyages of Acquisition, a translating device was created and is a common tool of the Caste of Scribes.

"The schedule that was forced upon me was meticulous and grueling, and except for rest and feeding, alternated between times of study and times of training, largely in arms, but partly in the use of various devices as common to the Goreans as adding machines and scales are to us. One of the most interesting was the Translator, which could be set for various languages. Whereas there was a main common tongue on Gor, with apparently several related dialects or sublanguages, some of the Gorean languages bore in sound little resemblance to anything I had heard before, at least as languages; they resembled rather the cries of birds and the growls of animals; they were sounds I knew could not have been produced by a human throat. Although the machines could be set for various languages, one term of the translation symmetry, at least in the machines I saw, was always Gorean. If I set the machine to, say, Language A and spoke Gorean into it, it would, after a fraction of a second, emit a succession of noises, which was the translation of my Gorean sentences into A. On the other hand, a new succession of noises in A would be received by the machine and emitted as a message in Gorean. My father, to my delight, had taped one of these translation devices with English, and accordingly it was a most useful tool in working out equivalent phrases. Also, of course, he and Torm worked intensively with me. The machine, however, particularly to Torm"s relief, allowed me to practice on my own. These translation machines are a marvel of miniaturization, each of them, about the size of a portable typewriter, being programmed for four none-Gorean languages. The translations, of course, are rather literal, and the vocabulary is limited to recognitions of only about 25,000 equivalencies for each language. Accordingly, for subtle communication or the fullest expression of thought, the machine was inferior to a skilled linguist. The machine, however, according to my father, retained the advantage that its mistakes would not be intentional, and that its translations, even if inadequate, would be honest." — Tarnsman of Gor, pages 39-40.

Difficulties in Translation

Often, it's seen where many attempt to literally translate certain words and or expressions from Gorean into English. Generally, the translation is never exact, as with attempting such with any two or more languages. Too, Goreans may once have been of earth, but no longer are, and therefore, their expressions would have mutated along with everything else. Therefore, often, it becomes difficult not only to translate a word from Gorean to English, but phrases and expressions as well. The following demonstrates such translation difficulties:

"The new vessel was abeam on our port side. Sailors of Cos usually refer to the left side of the ship by the port of destination and the right side of the ship by the port of registration; this alters, of course, when the ports of destination and registration are the same; in that case the sailors of Cos customarily refer to the left side of the ship as the 'harbor side,' the right side of the ship normally continuing to be designated as before, by reference to the port of registration. This sort of thing occasionally presents problems in translation between Gorean and English. For example, an expression in Gorean which might intelligently be translated as 'Off the starboard bow,' would be more literally translated, for the ship on which we were, as 'To the Telnus bow.' The exact expressions 'port' and 'starboard' do not exist in Gorean, though there are, naturally, equivalent expressions. The English expression 'starboard' is a contraction of 'steering board,' and refers to the side of certain ships, particularly northern ships, on which the steering board, or rudder, was to be found. Most Gorean vessels, on the other hand, like many early vessels of Earth, are double ruddered. A reference to the 'rudder side' would thus, in Gorean, be generally uninformative. It might be noted, however, if it is of interest, that the swift, square-rigged ships of Torvaldsland are single ruddered, and on the right side. A reference to the 'rudder side' or 'steering-board,' or 'steering-oar,' side would be readily understood, at least by sailors, if applied to such a ship." — Slave Girl of Gor, page 362.

The Gorean Alphabet

The Gorean alphabet is comprised of twenty-eight (28) characters, all of which owe their origin to one or another alphabets of Earth. At least six or seven are of classical Roman influence, others possibly Greek, Cretan, and Oriental. Some characters are block style, others cuneiform and calligraphic.

"Al-Ka!" said Torm, pointing one long, authoritative finger at the sign.
      "Al-Ka," he said.
      "Al-Ka," I repeated.
      We looked at one another, and both of us laughed. A tear of amusement formed along the side of his sharp nose, and his pale blue eyes twinkled. I had begun to learn the Gorean alphabet. — Tarnsman of Gor, page 37.

"The Gorean alphabet has twenty-eight characters, all of which, I suspect, owe their origin to one or another of the alphabets of Earth. Several show a clear-cut resemblance to Greek letters, for example. 'Sidge', on the other hand, could be cuneiform, and 'Tun' and 'Val' are probably calligraphically drifted from demotic. At least six letters suggest influence by the classical Roman alphabet, and seven do, if we count 'Kef', the first letter in 'Kajira'. 'Shu' is represented by a sign which seems clearly oriental in origin and 'Homan', I speculate, may derive from Cretan. Many Gorean letters have a variety of pronunciations, depending on their linguistic context. Certain scribes have recommended adding to the Gorean alphabet new letters, to independently represent some of these sounds which, now, require alternative pronunciations, context-dependent, of given letters. Their recommendations, it seems, are unlikely to be incorporated into formal Gorean." — Explorers of Gor, pages 9-10.

Pronunciations

Goreans do not necessarily pronounce letters similar to those of Earth (not "Urth"). For example, the Gorean letter "U" when, as the first letter of a word, is always pronounced as "you." For example, in the word "Ubar," the "U" is pronounced "YOU." In reading the books by John Norman, you will see that he grammatically uses "a Ubar" rather than "an Ubar" supporting that the correct pronunciation is "you-bar." The misspelling of "Urth" (which was, by the way, a misspelling created by mIRC Gor), would then, according to the language of Gorean, be pronounced "Yerth."

NOTE: John Norman made a blooper with the word "Ubar" — check out the Norman Bloopers page for this and more.

Here are four (4) examples of Gorean pronunciations with reference to specific letters: the letter "U", the letter "W" which is absent from the Gorean language, the letter "K" and the letter "Q:"

"A Ubar," he cried, "answers such a question only with his sword!" — Tarnsman of Gor, page 172.

"He could never, like most native speakers of Gorean, properly handle the 'w' sound, for it is extremely rare in Gorean, existing only in certain unusual words of obviously barbarian origin." — Nomads of Gor, page 173.

"Ko-lar," she said, indicating her collar.
      "It is the same word in English," I cried. She did not understand my outburst. Gorean, as I would learn, is rich in words borrowed from Earth languages; how rich it is I am not a skilled enough philologist to conjecture. "Collar!" I said.
      Eta frowned. "Ko-lar," she repeated, again indicating the neck band of steel fashioned on her throat.
      "Ko-lar," I said, carefully following her pronunciation. Eta accepted this. — Slave Girl of Gor, pages 80-81.

The quote above does seem to justify the correct Gorean spelling of the word "collar" to be "ko-lar" if only that the pronunciation justifies it, the "K" a much harder sound than a hard "C" in English. It also emphasizes that the "O" in "ko-lar" is not a long "o" (as in the word "ore") but rather a short "o" (as in the words "collar" and "cot"). This, too, is backed by the mention of the "kef" versus the "kwah" in the following quote.

"The 'qa' in the name 'Feiqa,' incidentally, is pronounced rather like 'kah' in English. I have not spelled it 'Feikah' in English because the letter in question, in the Gorean spelling, is a 'kwah' and not a 'kef.' The 'kwah' in Gorean, which I think it possibly related, directly or indirectly, to the English 'q', does not always have a 'kwah' sound. Sometimes it does; sometimes it does not." — Mercenaries of Gor, page 13.

Literacy on Gor

Illiteracy is common on Gor, especially among those of the low castes, and is not taken as a sign of stupidity. Literacy is not necessary to survive, and sometimes being illiterate, or at least the illusion thereof, can mean life or death. This, however, is a subject that John Norman waffles on.

Too, as with the early man of Earth, memories play an important part in the lives of Goreans. Such groups as the Wagon Peoples bear clans of historians, the Singers and the Yearkeepers, to keep a living history, rather than losing it to paper. Many poets never write out their creations, and music is never written out.

"The Wagon Peoples do not trust important matters, such as year names, to paper or parchment, subject to theft, insect and rodent damage, deterioration, etc. Most of those of the Wagon Peoples have excellent memories, trained from birth. Few can read, though some can, perhaps having acquired the skill far from the wagons, perhaps from merchants or tradesmen. The Wagon Peoples, as might be expected, have a large and complex oral literature. This is kept by and occasionally, in parts, recited by the Camp Singers." — Nomads of Gor, page 12 (footnote).

"In further defense, I might point out that many warriors … seem to take pride in a putative lack of literacy. Indeed, several fellows I have known, of the scarlet caste, take pains to hide their literacy, seemingly ashamed of an expertise in such matters, regarding such as befitting scribes rather than warriors … I have known, incidentally, on the other hand, several warriors who were quite unapologetic about literary interests and capabilities, men who were, for example, gifted historians, essayists and poets." — Magicians of Gor, page 76.

"Midice, Thura, Ula were all, as is common with rence girls, illiterate." — Raiders of Gor, page 118.

"Because there are many Gorean who cannot read, many stores, shops and such, will utilize various signs and devices to identify their place of business. For example, a large wooden image of a paga goblet may hang outside a tavern, a representation of a hammer and anvil outside a metal-worker's shop, one of a needle and thread outside a cloth-worker's, and so on… Illiteracy, or, more kindly, an inability to read and write, is not taken on Gor as a mark of stupidity. These things tend rather, in many cases, to be associated with the caste structure and cultural traditions." — Magicians of Gor, pages 393-394.

"Ivar's reply was not a little belligerent. I knew him able to read some rune markings. I gathered that these, perhaps because of antiquity or dialect, were beyond him. Ivar's attitude toward reading was not unlike that of many of the north. He had been taught some rune signs as a boy, that he could understand important stones, for in these stones were the names of mighty men and songs of their deeds, but it had not been expected of him that he would be in any sense a fluent reader. Ivar, like many of those in the north, was a passable reader, but took care to conceal this fact. He belonged to the class of men who could hire their reading done for them, much as he could buy thralls to do his farming. It was not regarded as dignified for a warrior to be too expert with letters, such being a task beneath warriors. To have a scribe's skills would tend to embarrass a man of arms, and tend to lower his prestige among his peers. Many of the north, then, were rather proud of their illiteracy, or semi-illiteracy. It was expected of them. It honored them. His tools were not the pen and parchment, but the sword, the bow, the ax and spear." — Magicians of Gor, pages 230-231.

The Written Language

On Gor, unfortunately, there are no photocopy machines or scanners, thus making the task of copying records tedious, as they must be done by hand. Fortunately, there does seem to be a form of shorthand used, not only by Scribes, but even the slave girl.

"Ar Passing clown a corridor, trailing after Ho-Tu, we stopped briefly to peer into a large room. In this room I saw two slave girls, clad in yellow livery with yellow collars, as Elizabeth normally was, kneeling opposite one another. One girl was dictating from a piece of record paper held in her hand and the other girl was copying it rapidly on a second piece of record paper. The speed with which this was done informed me that some form of shorthand must be being used." — Assassin of Gor, page 113.

"The records you seek are not, of course, kept in the office of Caprus. He says he may need time," she said. "He has found numerous notes and maps, but it may take months to copy them. He does not wish to appear to be absent from his duties for long periods." — Assassin of Gor, page 178.

The use of paper and pens is commonplace on Gor, a variety of papers from the cheap and common rence paper to the finer vellum and parchments.

"… in Gorean script, moving from left to right, and then from right to left on alternate lines. The writing was quite legible. It was written in black ink, probably with a reed pen. This again suggested the delta of the Vosk." — Nomads of Gor, page 50.

"Then, from within the collar, he drew forth a thin, folded piece of paper, rence paper made from the fibers of the rence plant, a tall, long-stalked leafy plant which grows predominantly in the delta of the Vosk." — Nomads of Gor, page 49.

"I would have expected the message to have been written either on stout, glossy-surfaced linen paper, of the sort milled in Ar, or perhaps on vellum and parchment, prepared in many cities and used commonly in scrolls, the process involving among other thing tile washing and liming of skins, their scraping and stretching, dusting them with sifted chalk, rubbing them down with pumice." — Nomads of Gor, page 49.

Paper on Gor is in the form of scrolls, and thus to enable the efficiency of reading these often times massive scrolls, a reading device is available.

"With annoyance, Torm poked through one of the enormous piles of scrolls and at last, on his hands and knees, fished out one skimpy scroll, set it in the reading device – a metal frame with rollers at the top and bottom – and, pushing a button, spun the scroll to its opening mark, a single sign." — Tarnsman of Gor, page 37.

There is also a stiffer form of paper, rag paper, which is layered and glue, used for the printing of bills and other such signs and posters in a silk-screen type of process.

"Elsewhere in the room there were some free men, Scribes I gathered though they were stripped to the waist, who were inking, using a silk-screen process, large sheets of layered, glued rag paper. One of them held the sheet up inspecting it, and I saw that it was a bill, which might be pasted against a public building, or on the public boards near the markets. It advertised a sale. Other such sheets, hanging on wires, proclaimed games and tarn races." — Assassin of Gor, page 113.

The Gorean language is written in such a way that the alternate line changes directions. Commonly, the first line runs left to right, the second from right to left, and so on.

For example, the above paragraph written the Gorean way would look like this:

The Gorean language is written in such a way that the alternate line changes directions.
.no os dna ot tfel thgir morf dnoces eht thgir ot tfel snur enil tsrif eht ylnommoC
A bit hard to read?

"… in Gorean script, moving from left to right, and then from right to left on alternate lines." — Nomads of Gor, page 50.

WHEW! No wonder so many Goreans are illiterate!

Cursive, is generally, to most, much more difficult to read. One can understand why based on this concept of alternate lines switching direction of words. However, we see that perhaps this is something defined first by the Priest-Kings and passed down to the Gorean peoples, noting that their scent-dots, which is the "language" of these other-worldly insects, also are arranged in alternating rows.

"The first line is commonly written left to right, the second from right to left, and so on. Cursive script is, of course, at least for me, even more difficult." — Magicians of Gor, page 76.

Scent-dots, incidentally, are arranged in rows constituting a geometrical square, and are read beginning with the top row from left to right, then right to left, and then left to right and so on again. Gorean, I might note, is somewhat similar, and though I speak Gorean fluently, I find it very difficult to write, largely because of the even-numbered lines which, from my point of view, must be written backwards. Torm, my friend of the Caste of Scribes, never forgave me this and to this day, if he lives, he undoubtedly considers me partly illiterate. As he said, I would never make a Scribe. "It is simple," he said. "You just write it forward but in the other direction."   — Priest-Kings of Gor, pages 100-101.

At least within the universal language of Gor, the letters remain the same despite the sub-culture, as demonstrated in the following quote.

"It is a well-known fact on the world, Earth, that the cursive script of diverse nationalities, such as the English, French and Italian, tend to differ in certain general ways, aside from the individual characteristics of particular writers. Certain letters, for example, tend to be formed differently. Much the same thing, predictably, and perhaps even more so, given the isolation of so many of her cities, occurs on Gor… It was not that Cosian script was illegible, say, to folks of Ko-ro-ba or Ar, but rather that it was recognizably different… In the formation of most cursive letters, incidentally, there are few, if any, differences among the various cities. The differences tend to have more to do with the 'cast' of the hand, so to speak, its general appearance, a function of a number of things, such as size, spacing of letters, linkages among them. Also, certain letters, at least for commercial or legal, if not personal, purposes, tended to be standardized. An excellent example are those standing for various weights and measures. Another familiar example is the tiny, lovely, cursive 'kef' which is the same whether it is put on a girl in Cos, or Ar, or Ko-ro-ba, or Thentis or Turia." — Magicians of Gor, page 347.

Rules of Grammar: Capitalization Rules

Capitalization of particular words, such as nouns is done much differently in the Gorean language. Rather than being based on the word being a noun, the context of the words determines capitalization.

"Interestingly, Goreans, although they do not capitalize all nouns do capitalize many more of them than would be capitalized in, say, English or French. Sometimes context determines capitalization. Languages are diverse and interesting, idiosyncratic and fascinating." — Beasts of Gor, page 37.

Compound words are not uncommon in the Gorean language. Compound words are denoted oftentimes by a "–" between the words, such as the compound word "Sa-Tarna." However, in the languages of certain cultural peoples of Gor, such as the red savages, compound words are not separated by any distinguishing punctuation mark or symbol.

"In the compound sign fleer presumably occurs as a modifier in virtue of the bird's coloration. Adjectives in sign commonly, though not always, follow the noun, so to speak. This arrangement is doubtless to be expected, for it reflects a common grammatical feature of the spoken languages of the red savages. The word 'mazasapa', for example, literally means 'black metal'. 'Maza' is the word for 'metal' and 'sapa' is the word for 'black'. We would translate the expression, of course, as 'iron'." — Savages of Gor, page 246.

Rules of Grammar: Pluralization

Pluralization of particular words is obviously influenced by the derivation of languages of Earth; in the following quote we see pluralization obviously influenced by Latin derivitives.

"One of the traces of Earth influence on Gorean, incidentally, in this case, an influence from Latin, occurs in the singular and plural endings of certain expressions. For example, 'kajirus' is a common expression for a male slave as is 'kajira' for a female slave. The plural for slaves considered together, both male and female, or for more than one male slave is 'kajiri.' The plural for female slave is 'kajirae.'" — Magicians of Gor, pages 436-437.

Old Gorean versus Old Language

There is a such thing known as Old Gorean. It is a language created by the Intiates but not generally spoken on Gor. A comparative on Earth, is the ancient language of Latin, still used by priests, but not a spoken language amongst the main populace.

"… Old Gorean, a language cultivated by the Initiates but not spoken generally on the planet…" — Tarnsman of Gor, page 40.

Seen often and used in many Gorean chat sites is a language the misinformed call the Old Language, or the Kassar Language, apparently created by someone of a Kassar group of eons ago. Such misinformation is one of many rampant things that has been radically changed in the general online populace of Gor with the growing numbers who purchased their own books and read for themselves, discovering they were indeed duped. The words and spellings regarded as the non-existent Old Language are: "Blackwyne," "Urth," "Nidan," "Jashi," "Fadu," "Chaq," "Ahleena," "Jerag," "Vana'she," and "Avan'shea." These terms never appeared in the books written by John Norman.

 

 

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Special Note

Because of the differences in publishing the books, depending upon whether published in the U.S. or Europe, depending upon whether a first publishing or a Masquerade Books release, page numbers will often vary. All of my quotes are from original, first-printing U.S. publications (see The Books page for a listing of publishers and dates) with the exception of the following books:

  • Tarnsman of Gor (2nd Printing, Balantine)
  • Outlaw of Gor (11th Printing, Balantine)
  • Priest-Kings of Gor (2nd Printing, Balantine)
  • Assassin of Gor (10th Printing, Balantine)
  • Raiders of Gor (15th Printing, Balantine)
  • Captive of Gor (3rd Printing, Balantine)

Disclaimer

These pages are not written for any specific home, but rather as informational pages for those not able to get ahold of the books and read them yourself. Opinions and commentaries are strictly my own personal views, therefore, if you don't like what you are reading — then don't. The information in these pages is realistic to what is found within the books. Many sites have added information, assuming the existences of certain products and practices, such as willowbark and agrimony for healing, and travel to earth and back for the collection of goods. I've explored the books, the flora, the fauna, and the beasts, and have compiled from those mentioned, the probabilities of certain practices, and what vegetation mentioned in the books is suitable for healing purposes, as well as given practicalities to other sorts of roleplaying assumptions.